Wrote an article for the
SM Observer on
the Santa Monica Omusubi restaurant
Sunny Blue.
Sunny Blue Celebrating 2 Years of Bringing Omusubi to Main Street
Sunny Blue, the only omusubi shop in Santa Monica, actually the only omusubi
shop Southern California, just turned two years old. Co-owned by the cheery
Keiko Nakashima, along with her father Mitsuo Numano, this teeny tiny Main
Street restaurant is packed with customers of all folds. From adventuresome
foodies to frugal students to local families they all come together to create a
community of omusubi lovers.
Omusubi (also called onigiri) are triangular-shaped stuffed rice balls
wrapped in nori. “In Japan, people of all ages eat omusubi everyday like we eat
sandwiches here in the U.S,” explains Keiko. “People would take them for lunch
and for outings such as field trips and events. They’re a grab and go for our
customers to savor them any time and anywhere.”
How Sunny Blue came to be was the result of a whole lot of kismet and
international travel. Keiko was born in Japan, raised from elementary school to
sixth grade in America, she then moved back to Japan for middle and high school
before returning to the States permanently for college. “I went to FIDM where I
majored in merchandizing. I always knew what I wanted to do, or at least I
thought I knew what I wanted to do. After college, I got my job and got married
right away.” But after spending years being a homemaker, she has four children
between the ages of 10 and 18, Keiko found herself somewhere she would have
never expected herself to be.
“When I was in elementary school I would tell my mom, ‘please don’t make me
that for lunch,’ because the kids would tease me. It’s definitely ironic that
I’m making omusubi now.” Keiko notes that many of her Japanese American
customers have similar stories. “We all went through the same thing; it’s
really crazy.” How she ended up owning a popular restaurant selling the one
thing she abhorred as a child has fate written all over it, fate and
Pinkberry.
It all started four years when Keiko’s father, Mitsuo came over from Japan
for a visit, during the Pinkberry boom. “My parents had come to visit and I was
taking them around L.A. and I told them, ‘I need to show you this yogurt place.
It tastes just like the yogurt places of my childhood in Japan.’” Her parents
loved it, and they weren’t alone. At this time yogurt shops were exploding all
over Los Angeles with the force of a tsunami wave.
When Mitsuo returned to Japan his nephew started telling him how he had just
entered the yogurt business. “My cousin said, ‘it’s a really big boom. You
should go for it!’” Mitsuo had recently retired from being a Vice President of
optical company that manufactured prisms for everything from computers to
cameras to satellites. “He wanted to do something else with his free time so
that talk with my cousin really opened his eyes,” noted Keiko. “So one thing
lead to another and we decided to open up a frozen yogurt business in the
States.”
“It definitely seemed like kismet. Ever since I was a little girl I’ve
always wanted to own my own shop and then here is my father saying, ‘you should
open up a yogurt shop!’ But by the time I started looking around there were too
many, the market was saturated.” Keiko realized yogurt would end up being a
fad. “I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing so I realized that we
needed to do yogurt and something else.”
The something else turned out to be omusubi. “My husband said, ‘People
really love Japanese cuisine, they love sushi. Omusubi is an easy concept.’
Nobody was doing it so I knew as long as the food was good and the concept was
good it was going to do well. So I just went for it.”
In the beginning Sunny Blue offered six different omusubi flavors, by
comparison they are now offering twelve flavors along with side dishes. Sunny
Blue’s staff impregnates each omusubi full of filling of Keiko’s own design
such as Spicy Salmon, cured salmon with chili seasoning, or Miso Mushroom,
stuffed with king oyster mushrooms and enoki mushrooms sautéed with ginger miso
sauce. All running in the choice price range of two to four dollars each. Each
omusubi at Sunny Blue is individually prepared and served on a taco-truck style
paper plate, convenient for takeouts. They offer five different Vegan options
for the non-meat/ non-dairy crowd.
Naming it Sunny Blue was her Dad’s thing. “He was inspired by the founder of
Sony, who originally wanted to name his company ‘Sonny Boy.’” The story goes
that they ended up shortening the name to Sony for pronunciation reasons, but
Mitsuo wanted to use “Sunny” to reference his hero. And the “Blue,” it
represents the ocean that connects Japan and California.
Keiko has lived in the Valley for twenty years, but is as “Always West of
Lincoln,” as they get. “Omusubi is derived from a Japanese word “musubu” which
means to hold together or connect,” she notes. “Here at Sunny Blue we believe
in holding hands with the local businesses and local customers while connecting
with the environment.” Sunny Blue has a frequent customer program (categorized
by first names) where if you buy 10 you get one free. Sunny Blue tries to hire
local students whenever possible and Keiko serves on the board of the Main
Street Business Improvement Association. “I love Main Street, we’re a
community. We all know each other on the block. If a light goes out I can go
next door and borrow a bulb.”
This feeling of community is also found in Sunny Blue’s relationship to the
community. “It’s intimate here, people stop by all the time. They’ll come back
from the beach, swing by, and say ‘my child wants to show you her new wand.’
It’s such a community, I feel like a family.” There are a million stories of
how Keiko’s found her way into the hearts of her customers. One time she ran
into one of her customers while picking up some strawberries at One Life
market, her customer ended up bringing her back to her house because she wanted
to show Keiko where she lived. Another time one of the few stools outside Sunny
Blue was rocking to side to side. “John, one of my customers, offered to fix
it. He took it home, repaired it, and brought it back the next day. That was
amazing!”
And there’s the time one of her customers, an elementary school student,
invited us to her theatrical play performance. “When we went she was so happy
we were there. It was so much fun! I try my best to go and watch whenever I’m
invited. I love my customers, I totally appreciate them.”
But Sunny Blue isn’t just for locals anymore. “We were recently in the
Frugal Finds section of L.A. Magazine. It’s driven a lot of customers here.”
Sunny Blue has a really good Internet record; “we’re usually number one on Yelp
for Santa Monica Cheap Eats and three or four in all of Los Angeles.” But even
as the non-locals pour in Sunny Blue will always have the hearts of Main Street
Santa Monica.
